by Max Brand
“Looked like we could go on forever and never get no closer to ’em. And our horses was beginning to roar, they were so plumb tired. We was all about to give up the fight, when all at once a shooting started right ahead of us up the valley, and Sheriff Brown, he lets out a yell.
“‘It’s Happy Jack!’ he hollers. ‘It’s Happy Jack, boys, and he’s sure made the short cut. He must’ve turned his men and horses into goats to get up there.’
“But there wasn’t no doubt about it. Pretty soon, down come the Tucker gang … eleven instead of the fourteen we’d first counted, and we knew that Happy Jack had counted for three of ’em.
“Tucker tried to rush us. But eleven ag’in’ eighteen wasn’t no easy chance for him. We give him some quick fire. We emptied a couple of saddles and, when they turned to run up the valley again … there being no manner of ways for them to climb the sides of that ravine … we give it to ’em again, and even in the moonlight we shot good enough to drop another of ’em.
“You can count for yourself. That left eight gents ready to fight for their lives, and all heading up the valley straight for Happy Jack. They was bad ones, that gang of Tucker’s. Nothing they wouldn’t do. They’d burned and murdered and tortured and robbed. A choice lot of devils they was, every one. And now they had to fight for their lives.
“‘How many men did Happy get through the mountains by the short cut?’ hollers the sheriff. ‘How many? But Lord help ’em if they can’t turn Tucker back before he gets to close quarters. Ride, boys! Ride!’
“And thinking about Happy and the rest of the boys … which couldn’t’ve been more’n two or three that he’d got through the short cut … we sure did punish our horseflesh to get up in time to help.
“But, when experts are fighting, it don’t take long to end a scrap. We heard a crackling and a booming and a smashing of guns up the valley. And then came a couple of yells that made your heart stop beating. And then all at once there was a dead silence. There wasn’t even a whisper. Just that cold, white moonshine a-pouring down on the valley.
“‘They’ve busted through!’ called out Brown. ‘Lord help Happy and the rest. Tucker must’ve busted through!’
“Up the valley we go like a shot. Pretty soon we get near the place. We see one of Tucker’s men lying on his back with his arms throwed out. Then we come on three strung out one after another. And we knew that they’d dropped while they was rushing a big bunch of rocks right ahead of us. We galloped for them rocks. Right on the top of them we seen another of Tucker’s men fallen on his face. And there was a second inside the rocks. That made six we found dead or wounded bad.
“What we seen next was sure a funny picture. It was Happy Jack sitting there in the moonshine with his back against a rock smoking a cigarette, with two dead men at his feet. We come to him with a yell.
“‘Are you hurt bad?’ asked Brown, putting his arms around Happy like Happy was his own kid.
“‘They drilled me,’ Happy says, quiet as you please. ‘But I think that I’ll pull through, right enough. Mind that poor devil there, though, will you? I think he’s got a spark of life in him. He needs help more’n me.’
“We turned that gent over. It was Tucker. And he was just kicking out.
“‘Carry me over to Jack,’ he says.
“We done it. It sure rides hard not to do what a dying man asks, even when he’s a murdering skunk like Tucker was. We carried him over, and he puts out his hand to Happy.
“‘If I’d had you with me, kid,’ he says, ‘I’d’ve beat the world. So long, and good luck.’
“And then he died.
“‘But where’s the rest of the boys, Happy?’ says the sheriff, while we work like fury tying up Happy’s wounds, and him never making a murmur.
“‘They didn’t get here,’ says Happy. ‘The going was pretty rough.’
“‘You stood ’em off all alone?’ says the sheriff.
“‘I had to,’ says Happy and grins.
“And that was the honest truth. He’d done that fighting all by himself. And he’d won out. And that man, that Happy Jack, is the gent that’s in your house tonight calling himself your son.”
“And why not?” Mrs. Neilan asked, her voice trembling. “Surely we’d be proud to have such a hero for a son.”
“Sure you would,” Chip Flinders said, and nodded kindly. “But, you see, I asked about Happy Jack. He’d been brought up around Morgan Run, which was the name of the creek that run down the valley where he killed Tucker. Somebody passing through left a baby behind ’em, and that baby was raised by everybody in general and nobody in particular, and because of his grin they got to calling him Happy Jack. They remembered him since he was a baby, and Johnny didn’t leave home till he was fourteen, pretty near.”
Mrs. Neilan dropped her face in her hands. Her husband rose and strode to and fro in the room.
“He looks like Johnny,” he said. “But he sure ain’t got Johnny’s mean streak in him. And … Chip, heaven help you if you’re lying to me.”
“Do I look like I was lying?” Chip asked. “And do you think I’d talk ag’in’ a gunfighter like Happy Jack if I didn’t know that I was right? Ain’t I taking my life in my hands by saying what I’ve said?”
“Them that bring bad-luck tidings don’t get much thanks,” said the rancher. “Almost I wish you hadn’t told me. But what would Happy Jack be doing here?”
“He’s trailed crooks and fought crooks and lived with crooks. And them that live free and easy are kind of apt to get free and easy. Ain’t you got a pile of money in your safe down in the cellar?”
Neilan started. “Money? I should say! You think he come to make a play for that?”
“John, John!” Mrs. Neilan moaned. “Are you going to give him no chance to clear himself? Even if I swear that I know he’s good and honest, even if he ain’t my boy?”
“And I gave him the key, like an idiot,” groaned the rancher. “If the money’s gone, I deserve losing it.”
Gathering his revolver in a closer grip, he ran out of the room.
X
Down into the cellar ran Neilan, as fast as his old legs would carry him, and one glance at the open door of the safe was enough. He whirled and labored back up the stairs with teeth set and his gun poised. Not that he had any real hope of finding Happy Jack in the house, but he was in a fighting humor, and the touch of the rough gun butt was soothing against his palm.
He started straight for the room that Happy had slept in. But a whisper of voices in the hall, as he approached the top of the stairs, gave him pause.
Flat against the steps he dropped and, pushing the revolver ahead of him, he raised his head to look. He saw Happy Jack and the girl standing side by side. What they said he could not make out. But what happened he could easily see. In the hand of Happy Jack there was a thick wad of greenbacks, and he transferred the entire bundle of money to the hands of the girl. Then, with a wave of the hand, he turned away down the hall.
The master of the house waited to see no more. He whirled and scurried down the stairs as fast as he could run, blessing the age that had withered him to such lightness that his footfall made no sound on the boards.
He whisked into the safety of his room and confronted his wife and Chip.
“You’re right, Chip,” he said, “and I’m sure thanking you for what you told me. He done it. The safe’s open, and the money’s gone. And then I sneaked up to find him in his room, thinking he might not’ve gone yet. And he hadn’t. He was still here. He was in the hall talking to the girl. And what do you think the fox has done?”
“Talking to Mary?” Mrs. Neilan gasped.
“Aye, he’s bought her out. That’s the gratitude she returns us for giving her a home. I seen him put the money in her hands. Don’t you see how he figures? Suppose he’s trailed and caught? He’ll pass it off easy. He’ll say that
coming here was just a joke. He played the joke, and he left before morning. We say he busted open the safe and done burglary. He says … ‘Then where’s the money I took?’ And there’s no money on him! Why? Because he’s left it with the girl. And afterward she’s to slip away and send him the stuff, or half of it. She’s always hated us. I’ve seen it in her quiet ways and the look she gives us now and then. And now she’s going to have money enough to start her out in life.”
He ground his teeth in his fury.
“We’ll change that. We’ll teach her, the vixen! And if being caught with stolen goods means the penitentiary in this state, I’m sure going to see that she lands there.”
“John!” broke in his wife, wringing her hands. “Won’t you listen to reason? Won’t you please listen to me? There must be some explanation. If you’ll only wait, you’ll find out that neither Happy Jack nor Mary mean anything wrong.”
“Are you plumb losing your mind?” exclaimed her irate husband. “Didn’t I see the door of the safe open? Didn’t I see him making her a Christmas present of the money? He’s leaving the house right now.”
He raised his hand to hush them. And in the breathless interval of silence, all three could hear the soft thud of a closing door. Neilan roused himself suddenly, and in the space of a few seconds he had thrust his legs into trousers, his feet into shoes that he did not pause to button, and huddled a coat over his thin shoulders.
“You’re not going to follow him?” cried his wife. “Oh, John. I wish I’d never been born!”
“Hush up!” commanded her husband. “There he goes now.”
Peering through the window, they saw the tall figure of Happy Jack striding through the starlight across the snow.
* * * * *
Happy Jack went slowly, realizing that he had gone out to face the second great danger that he had confronted tonight. But in the first event he had imperiled his honor and, now that this was safe, he looked forward to his meeting with Sandy Crisp as a lesser thing. Had he been able to bring his revolver with him, the adventure would have been an actual pleasure. But the promise to Mrs. Neilan bound him to helplessness in that respect.
Approaching the outskirts of the pines, he slackened his pace still further. Somewhere in that covert Crisp was waiting and perhaps Shorty Dugan was with him. The pines shut out the starlight and the haze of the westering moon after he had taken a few steps past the verge. He paused now, and whistled softly, raising his head so that the notes would travel as far as possible down the wind, which hummed and purred and whined through the upper branches.
After that he went on again, whistling a short note every few steps, until he came into a little clearing. He had hardly entered it when a hand fell without warning upon his shoulder and, staring about, he found himself face to face with Crisp, with Shorty grinning in the background.
“You got the stuff?” Sandy asked eagerly. And he rushed on, without waiting to hear an answer, as though he took success for granted: “But why didn’t you go by the stable and get your horse?”
But the larger man shook his head. “I ain’t got the stuff,” he said simply.
“You didn’t get the key?”
“No,” lied Happy Jack.
But Sandy Crisp began to chuckle softly.
“That’d make a good Christmas story,” he declared, “but I ain’t no ways in the humor for hearing yarns. It’s too cold, and we been waiting for you till we’re all froze up. Don’t lie, Happy. Do you think that we let all that party run along without watching? Not us! I slipped up and watched through the window. It was dead easy. And I seen with my own eyes when the old fool give you the key. So pony over the stuff, Happy, and we’ll be on our way as soon as you can get your horse. I don’t blame you for wanting to hog the whole lot of it. But I’m onto your game, Happy.”
Still Happy shook his head.
“You want to know what happened, Sandy?” he said.
“Sure I do,” said the other. “But what’s that?”
“Where?”
“I heard somebody break through the snow … that sort of crunching sound, anyways.”
“Maybe a branch fell. They ain’t anybody out here. Nobody knows I left the house.”
“Go look over there behind that brush, Shorty, and see.”
Shorty obeyed, but his survey of the gloom behind the thicket was a most cursory one. He came back with the report: “All clear. Nobody there.”
“All right,” said Sandy. “Now go on with your yarn, Happy. And make it quick.”
“I got the key,” said Happy Jack, “and I went down from my room and opened the safe and took out the loot.”
“That sounds like straight stuff.” The outlaw grinned as he moistened his lips.
“And then,” went on Happy, “old Missus Neilan came in and talked to me. She sure is a fine old lady, Sandy.”
“So you give her back the money?” Sandy sneered. “Come straight, now, Happy. Maybe I know more’n you think.”
“I didn’t give her the money,” Happy Jack said. “But, when she got through talking and left, I sure done a pile of thinking. And I saw that it was all a bum play, Sandy. I was playing the part of a sneaking coyote with folks that trusted me. You say that old Neilan is hard. Maybe he is, but he sure showed me a white hand all the way through. Anyway, I got to thinking, and finally I made up my mind that there wasn’t enough money in this game to buy me off. I’ve lived straight, Sandy, up to now, and from now on I figure on going extra straight. I gave that money to the girl, Mary Thomas, to put back in the safe, because I wouldn’t trust myself to handle that much coin. I might weaken at the last minute, thinking how many years’ pay was in the roll.”
“Just like a fairy story, you being the fairy prince,” Crisp said, still sneering. “Go on. I’m trying to listen. But I sure got a limit to my patience, Happy. What you figure on doing now?”
“There’s an old man and an old woman in that house, Sandy, that figure I’m their boy. Well, you know I ain’t. But I’ve made up my mind that if I can give ’em any happiness by playing the part, I’m willing to try. I’m going back there and live like I belong in that family.”
There was a moment of silence. The wind had dropped into a lull, and the hard breathing of Sandy Crisp was audible.
“Of all the lies I’ve ever heard,” he said at last, “this is the father and the grandfather of the lot, and I’ve sure heard some fine liars working in their prime days. But, do you think I’m fool enough to believe you, Happy?”
Happy Jack shrugged his shoulders. “That ain’t worrying me none.”
“And you expect me to believe, too, that because your holster is empty, you ain’t got a gun, maybe?”
“I promised Missus Neilan that I wouldn’t carry a gun, Sandy, and I’m living up to the promise.”
Sandy Crisp choked, and then broke into loud, indignant laughter. “Am I dreaming, maybe?” he cried at length. “Am I having a funny dream? Pinch me, Shorty, so’s I can wake up. Why, Happy, you fool, you’re getting weak-minded. Don’t you think I know you wouldn’t come out and face me with that lie and without a gun?”
“I’ve told you straight,” Happy Jack stated quietly.
“Then,” said the outlaw savagely, “you might’ve shot yourself first and saved me the trouble.”
“Wrong, Sandy. I know you’re a hard one, but even you won’t pull a gun on a gent that has bare hands.”
“Won’t I? You don’t know me, Happy. Not by a long ways.”
He swayed a little from side to side, very much as though the wind were unsteadying him, and yet at that moment there was not a breath. The dull moon haze fell softly into the clearing. The figures of the men stood out big and black and half obscured.
“I’m going to give you one more chance, Happy,” said the outlaw. “Are you going to come across with that coin, or do you aim to sta
rt in pushing daisies?”
“I’m done talking,” said Happy Jack, and turned on his heel.
He had almost reached the edge of the shadow when Sandy Crisp shouted: “Happy!”
Slowly he turned. The gun was already gleaming in the hand of Sandy, and the exclamation of Happy was drowned in the report that followed. Happy Jack slipped sidewise into the snow.
“Turn him over. See if he’s dead!” exclaimed Sandy Crisp. “And then we’ll make a break for …”
The last of his sentence was blotted out in a sudden fusillade from that same thicket that Shorty had been ordered to search the moment before. Shorty, with a yell of agony, leaped high in the air and landed running. In an instant he had disappeared among the farther trees. Sandy Crisp had doubled over at the sound of the first shot and fled with wolfish speed into the covert.
The uncertain light, and arms and hands numbed by the wait in the cold of the night, accounted for that poor shooting. John Neilan and Chip Flinders started out of their hiding place, cursing their erratic aim. Chip still was firing shot after shot through the trees beyond and shouting at the top of his lungs to the cowpunchers in the far-off bunkhouse. But, long before any response came, they heard the rapid crunching of the hoofs of galloping horses beating away through the snow.
In the meantime, John Neilan had dropped on his knees in the snow and with frantic efforts had turned the body of Happy Jack. He lay face up at length, a flow of crimson covering one side of his head. And suddenly his eyes opened and he stared about him.
“All right, Sandy,” he muttered. “You’ll get yours for this, you hound.”
“It’s not Sandy!” cried Neilan. “It’s John Neilan! Chip! Chip! He’s dead!”
The eyes had closed again.
